Trapped, and Freed, by the Ice

The ice storm in Maine in 1998 left more than half of the state’s population without power.CreditDavid McLain/Associated Press

BELGRADE LAKES, Me. — “Can you wake up?” the small voice said. “I need you to melt some snow.”

I looked around for the clock, but since the power had gone out, there was no clock to be seen. It was the middle of the night, that much was clear. Outside, the moon shone down on a world coated in ice.

I could see my son’s breath as his exhalations condensed in our house’s frigid air. “Zach,” I said to the 4-year-old, “can’t you go outside?” Since the ice storm, “melting snow” had become a euphemism, since we now needed fresh water to make the plumbing in the bathroom work. Outside, limbs broke off trees with a sound like a shotgun blast; ice crashing to the ground sounded like thousands of crystal goblets shattering against a stone floor.

“I’m not going outside,” Zach said. “It’s crazy-town out there!”

Today a huge chunk of the country is in the throes of a “bomb cyclone,” with a “polar vortex” predicted in its wake. In Maine, it’s the anniversary of the Great Ice Storm of 1998, which quietly gripped the Northeast 20 years ago this week. Our family, in Belgrade Lakes, was without power for 11 long days, and other towns were without for longer than that. Years later, when we saw Matt Damon in “The Martian,” we looked upon his ordeal — trapped and isolated on a frozen planet — as an experience that seemed strangely, terrifyingly familiar.

It had begun with mild temperatures and rain during the first week of the year, followed by freezing temperatures at night. The catastrophe was complete on Jan. 8, when the layers of ice grew so thick that power lines snapped and transformers exploded. At the height of the emergency, over 300,000 people were without power in our state, and vast swaths of Canada and upstate New York were affected as well.

At first, our family embraced the spectacle with some excitement — school was closed, and the four of us realized we had to depend on ourselves to make it through the storm. We fired up our stoves, chopped wood, moved perishables from the dead refrigerator to the front porch. It was like camping, with furniture.

In those days our young sons had a well-established routine for the final couple of hours of the day — after dinner and a bath, they’d watch “Rugrats” on television or a few other shows, including National Geographic’s “Geo Kids,” an educational program featuring a talking galago and a grumpy old chameleon named Uncle Balzac.

Now, however, the television was dark, along with the rest of the freezing house. Instead, we read books by candlelight. We played cards. We wore union suits and woolen sweaters and squirrel-fur hats. At one point I invented something called “Human TV,” which involved me sitting in front of the screen as my sons pointed a flashlight at the television, illuminating me. I mounted a live-action version of their evening programs. I was no Uncle Balzac, but I have to admit that there were some moments in “Human TV” that were highly entertaining, not the least of which was my rendition of the chameleon’s song about its changing colors.

My sons thought this was more entertaining than the Ringling Bros. circus. In short order they insisted on climbing off the sofa and joining me, leaving my spouse sitting on the couch shining a flashlight on the three of us with a look of fear and wonder.

As our second week in the dark began, I saw a line of National Guard trucks rolling into town, and something about it filled me with such an overwhelming sense of our vulnerability, and the fragility of human life, that tears spilled over my eyelashes and ran down my face.

On another day, I took Zach to a nearby golf course to go sledding. Just to get to the big hill at the course we had to walk through a frozen archway of trees, and as we did, limbs snapped and fell upon the ice all around us. My son looked at me and said, “Are you sure this is safe?”

I didn’t know what to tell him. I wasn’t sure of anything.

We climbed to the top of the hill, and we piled into the toboggan. Then we pushed off.

I’ll never forget that ride, my arms around my child, the two of us rushing down the hill at a speed that, all these years later, I am willing to admit was probably way too fast. It seemed to last forever, the two of us just gliding. Blinding sunlight reflected off the ice. The frozen air rushed against our cheeks. Whenever I think of my son, now grown and several years out of college, I think of us on that sled.

In the wake of the bomb cyclone this week, I fear there will be other families trapped, as we were, in the dark and the cold. I pray that we all make it to the other side of this new storm safe and sound. But I also hope that some people are able, fleetingly, to find what our family found 20 years ago, which was that being cut off from civilization — for a little while, anyway — brought us closer together.

When our lights finally came back on, on Day 11, we looked around our house at the almost inconceivable mess it had become during our time in the dark. Dishes were piled high in the sink; the floor was littered with wood chips and dirt.

But my son’s first reaction to the restoration of civilization was a look of disappointment. “What?” I said. “Aren’t you glad we have power again?”

“Yeah,” Zach said. “But I’m going to miss ‘Human TV.’”

That night, we turned off the lamps in the den again, and my sons and I imitated the voices of a galago and a chameleon. My spouse looked on in wonder, shining a light upon us in the dark.

Jennifer Finney Boylan (@JennyBoylan), a contributing opinion writer, is a professor of English at Barnard College and the author of the novel “Long Black Veil.”